So I’ve been obsessed with the idea of using airtime as an alternative instrument of payment for a long time. It turns out that this is pretty much impossible if the telcos and the CBN do not support this idea — they don’t and won’t, so it ain’t happening.

I forgot about this whole airtime for payment thing, till a very good friend of mine Odion mentioned it in one of our meetings. At that time, we were working on an online “Betting as a Service” application and noticed how difficult it was to implement a payment system that would allow people make micro-payments from anywhere without having to use their debit/credit cards or go to a nearby bank.

What we wanted to achieve was a WordPress-like system where bookies click a couple of buttons and wahala! — they have a betting website. We wanted to provided everything from the software, payment processing, remittance of winnings and an agent network of ticket vendors. To do this, we needed to be in control of payment.

Going with Interswitch wouldn’t have been a bad choice if we weren’t heavily targeting the regular baba/guy on the street who knows little about online payments or may not have a bank account.

More so, we didn’t want to use Interswitch for the following reasons:

It was and still expensive to setup

Using one of their minions (the aggregators) will mean a super low margin for us and the bookies.

We didn’t want agents to use PoS as this could increase the cost of becoming one.

Some people may not have a debit card.

This was when Ody asked if there was a way to allow people buy bet tickets using airtime. I cannot exactly remember my/our response but it started a separate discussion between her and I on how to make it work — Airtime as a payment system hmm! hmm!!

I understood we cannot actually use airtime as a way to pay for services. I mean, one cannot go out and buy N1000 MTN card and pay to a merchant online — Even if they accept it, how would they tell if it’s valid? Punching in a lot of pins into a device? of course this won’t scale. How would they exchange for fiat currency? Questions for the gods…

We researched bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and how they get their value. A bitcoin is pretty much a “record” on the bitcoin network that gets it’s value from it’s scarcity, cost of mining (electricity, hardware etc) and people’s trust in it.

So why can’t we have a digital currency/property that is backed by airtime — A currency whose intrinsic value is a mobile airtime and can be converted to airtime at the request of the owner. People buy this currency as they do bitcoin and exchange for goods and services. This study gave birth to the Rupt Network — A centralised payment network powered by a native currency named “rupt”.

Introduction

Rupt is a centralised digital currency and a payment network backed but not powered by mobile airtime. The Rupt Network is a collection of people and applications working together to create a new kind of financial system built solely to foster the development of innovative financial applications.

The Currency

To store and transfer value between people or applications, the network has it’s own native currency named Rupt or XR.

Unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, rupts are not mined or pre-mined. They are created on request by market makers who fund the network.

The funds received by the network provides the initial/base value for every unit of the currency created. These funds are held in trust and will be used to procure mobile top-ups for anyone who owns a rupt and needs to convert it to airtime at any time.

We choose to back the currency with airtime (it could have been cocoa, gold, bitcoin etc) for 3 reasons:

Airtime is still a valuable asset/resource to people in developing countries.

We didn’t want to create millions of rupts that have no value. It makes sense to simply treat it as a commodity and sell it from inception.

It would seem dodgy if we sold something that never existed and kept the proceeds.

Unlike regular currency, all rupts are not equal — What this means it that a unit of rupt has a base currency that may be different from the base currency of another unit of rupt.

For instance, If a market maker in Nigeria buys 1 rupt, then the base currency will be Naira. He could buy from Ghana and have the base currency be Cedi. Both are not equal because their value will vary.

So, the native currency is made local to particular country. One can say a rupt is a kind of tether currency.

Furthermore, a rupt is pretty much a record that can be destroyed when the worth of airtime backing it is requested. Upon request, the rupt is removed from the network and airtime is sent.

The Market Makers

Market markets are the backbone of the network. They provide the liquidity needed to make the whole system functional. Pretty much the entire system revolves around them.

They buy the currency from the network itself (at a fixed price) and sell to people via exchange services (more on services later). If someone needs rupts to make payment, they would have to exchange Naira for some rupts and vice versa.

Just like foreign exchange markets, market makers determine the final exchange cost and earn from every trade (buying or selling).

The Services

Services are applications that make use of the network APIs to build custom and unique solutions.

The network is an API server that handles creation, destruction, authorization, movement and conversion of rupts. Every other functionality will be provided by third-party services.

Even though the core has a wallet based architecture, there is still a need for a wallet management service to provide a front-end view and the various functionalities an end-user would interact with. There are other cool services people could develop such as a PayPal-like payment system, a MoneyGram kind of service etc.

The goal of the network is simply to create an alternate financial system that developers can leverage on to build powerful game changing applications. At a time when digital currencies are becoming the future of money (spearheaded by Bitcoin), there is no better time to do this than now.

Airtime Vendors

These are online mobile top-up businesses that will work closely with the network by providing an interface through which the system will purchase and transfer airtime. Each time a request for airtime is received, we will forward this request to the top-up vendor.

The Conclusion

We are really interested in seeing this through and are constantly pushing to meet our milestones. We are currently half way into developing the core itself and are actively seeking for people who believe in our goal and would like to be part of this.

Digital Nomads: Dipo, a cyber security analyst who left Nigeria to the UK to study shares his experience.
He also tells us what it feels like to be one of 36 people to receive a government scholarship for which over 6,000 people applied

Fuelled by the global health crisis that has seen businesses closed for months across the continent, job placement site Jobberman says there was a 70% decrease in job listings and 17% decrease in jobseeker sign ups in the beginning of March, just weeks short of the start of lockdowns in Nigeria and most of the […]

On 3rd June, 2020 In a Twitter thread a woman outlined a shocking alleged sexual harassment incident by Kendall Ananyi, founder and CEO of Tizeti; a broadband startup based out of Lagos, Nigeria. At the time of the alleged incident, Kendall was a coach at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) and this incident […]

Online platforms that allow people to post classifieds, including real estate, online. PropertyPro promised a “stressless approach to getting your dream home.” My experience on these platforms was far from this promise.

for many Nigerians, it’s okay to buy discs containing films and music, the hard copy of books and newspapers but weird to exchange money for a digital copy that’ll live on their phone or some virtual account.

Despite being labelled ‘troublesome’ by policymakers, Nigeria’s informal economy accounted for about 65% of its GDP in 2017. Startups digitizing financial activities in this sector are in a position to help understand its potential.

Get TechCabal's Daily Newsletterin Your Inbox

TC's biggest stories delivered to your inbox>

The most comprehensive roundup of technologyaround Africa, in your inbox, first thing in the morning.